Trailer Watch: International Edition

The French and their crazy sexual dramas are at it again. Just check out the plotline for Naissance Des Pieuvres (Water Lilies) -
One summer, three fifteen-year-old girls–Marie, Anne and Floriane–share secrets in the girl's locker room. Desire erupts. They will never be able to forget their first time
I have to warn you that that trailer for Water Lilies is one the edgiest trailers that will ever be posted in a Trailer Watch.


That's not the reason I am posting it though; the film is actually supposed to be pretty damn good. It currently has a rating of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes (over 10 reviews) which is pretty impressive.


Water Lilies, written and directed by first timer Celine Sciamma, debuted at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival and will hit theaters in a limited release on April 4th.

Mongol is the story of young Genghis Kahn and how the event of his life shaped him to be one of the greatest conquerors of all time. It was nominated for the 2007 Oscar for Foreign Language Film (Kazakhstan). I don't know much about the movie, but I do know that Genghis Kahn makes pirates and half naked Spartans look like bunch of nancies swinging their purses. I will see this movie for no other reason than Genghis Kahn was a bad ass mother-- shut your mouth.


Mongol is directed by Russian auteur Sergei Bodrov and will have a limited release on June 6th.

Horton Hears Cha-Ching

Hope everyone had a nice long holiday weekend. The folks over at Fox certainly did. Their animated feature film Horton Hears A Who!, starring Jim Carrey and Steve Carrel, retained its #1 spot at the box-office. The film based on the Dr. Seuss book of the same name has racked up close to $87 Million since opening nationwide 2 weeks ago.


"Horton Hears A Who!" was always one of my favorite children's book/indictments of McCarthyism Politics of the late 40's and 50's .


For those of you still feeling the sting of the dual rapings of your childhood memories of Dr. Seuss books; the ones perpetrated by the live action versions of How the Grinch Stole Christmas & The Cat in the Hat...not to worry! From everything I have read the filmmakers actually did a good job taking the basic story of the book (which is only 20 something pages long) and creating a nice little movie out of it.


If you check out the images (click for larger) you can see that the animation, done by Blue Sky Studios (the guys who did the Ice Age movies), actually looks pretty spectacular. I really haven't paid much attention to this movie up till now, but with all the positive stuff I've heard I may have to go check it out.On a side note...It always pissed me off to no end when I see these crazy Pro-Life invoking "Horton" and its recurring quote "A person's a person, no matter how small" as their rallying call in their anti-abortion debate.

"Horton Hears A Who!" wasn't written to be a pro-choice statement, nor was it meant to be a Jesus allegory as other desperate-for-attention religious groups have claimed. In fact Dr. Seuss's wife (Mrs. Seuss?) has sued these groups in an attempt to get them to stop using the book for their causes.

Pro-Choice supporters on the other hand have chosen a lesser know Seuss work called "Cindy Lou Gets an Abortion" with its not so famous quote "A person's only a person after the second trimester" (you try putting trimester into a Seussian rhyme, it's impossible I tired!).

Madness

There is a lot going on. It's celebrity sex tape week, with new celebrity sex scandals popping up every day (we've already had the Kristin Davis images, Spitzer's hooker logging hours of tape for Girls Gone Wild when she turned 18, and new today a possible Lindsay Lohan BJ)... Winona "Sticky Fingaz" Ryder apparantly got caught shoplifting...again.... Paul McCartney's ex-wife, Peg Leg McCuntface, won close to $40 Mil in her divorce settlement and is looking for more...Pete Wentz admits to failing at suicide (just like he is failing at manliness) and prolonging our national pain...and much much more.

But you know what? It's NCAA Tourney time! I'll be watching games for the next two days and will be MIA.

Go Chicken Nugget!

Food Fight, directed By Stefan Nadelman, is described as "An abridged history of American-centric warfare, from WWII to present day, told through the foods of the countries in conflict." It is one of the smartest, most creative shorts I have ever seen.

Although Food Fight can certainly be considered tongue-in-cheek it does not shy away from the more sensitive areas of American armed conflict, including the bombing of Hiroshima and a depiction of the 9/11 attacks in NYC. Normally I reject cinematic depictions of 9/11 as exploitative (I'm looking at you Oliver Stone), but when you put Nadelman's depiction in context with the rest of the video it doesn't have that effect. In fact the video as a whole is quite profound.

(Nadelman even provides a cheat sheet of what food represents who. It can be found here.)

SNL Brings The Funny

It's a presidential election year which means SNL is at it's best (it has a long proud history of political satire). Hilarity ensued this past weekend when former cast member and Haters to the Left favorite Tracy Morgan made a guest appearance at the Weekend Update desk to comment on Geraldine Ferraro's quote about Barack Obama - "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position"



I've watched this clip a bunch and the "I used to smoke Newports and drink Olde English" line gets me every time.

The other highlight of the night was the SNL Digital Short featuring guest host and another Haters to the Left favorite Jonah Hill. In the short it is revealed that there is a new special someone in Jonah's life.

Happy NOT St. Patty's Day!

I would wish you all a happy St. Patty's day, but it would be belated...yeah, see those pesky Bishops over in the Vatican moved St. Patrick's day this year for "religious" reasons. Turns out St. Patty's day was actually on the 15th this year, a Saturday, the perfect day for drinking way too much green beer and puking like Regan MacNeil in the Exorcist...and we all missed it.

From Ireland.com:

Worldwide celebrations for St Patrick's Day could face disruption after the Catholic Church decided to move the Irish patron saint's feast day.

Bishops were left with sore heads after they discovered the traditional March 17th festivities will clash next year with the second day of Holy Week.

Under the Church's rules, the General Norms for the Liturgical Year and Calendar, the saint's feast day does not rank as high as the Monday before Easter and has to be moved.

After much deliberation, Rome gave Irish authorities the green light to shift the official religious celebrations two days back to March 15th, which falls on a Saturday.

Fr Peter Jones, of the Liturgy Commission, insisted the move was necessary under the laws that govern the Church diary.

"It's about the religious aspect of the feast and mass on the day. It's not about whether it's a public holiday or not, it's not about whether sports events and parades take place," he said.

"It's about the Holy Day which can't be observed on the Monday of Holy Week and therefore has to be transferred in accordance with the usual rules."

In strict accordance with the rules, next year's St Patrick's Day should have been moved to the next available day in the Church's calendar, which is April 1st.

But senior Irish clerics were anxious to keep the date as close as possible to the international civic celebrations, which are often planned many years in advance.

The Vatican approved the irregular step of moving the day backwards next year to January 20th, but details have only just emerged.

The last time St Patrick's Day had to be moved was in 1940 when it was changed to April 3 ^rd because it coincided with Palm Sunday, the first day of Holy Week.

So, in honor of "Second Day of Holy Week"...

What's the difference between Jesus and a painting of Jesus?

You only need one nail to hold up a painting!

Thank you, thank you! I'll be here all week (unless of course I get struck by lightning)...don't forget to tip your waitress and try the veal! Goodnight!

Trailer Watch: An Avalanche of Trailers

This has been a pretty big week for trailers. So instead of the normal one (or two) trailers in the Trailer Watch I'm gonna give you a whole slew (with just a brief description for each).

First and foremost, we finally have a trailer for the new and (hopefully) improved Incredible Hulk movie starring Ed Norton. The talk around the interweb is that Norton and Marvel were at loggerheads over the final cut of the film. Marvel prefers a more family friendly action movie (a la Spider Man) whereas Norton wants to do for Hulk what Bale & Nolan did for Batman; reinvent the character in a darker film that tells the origin story of the character. This of course means the film becomes a character study that relies less on cheesy CG and more on the acting chops of the cast; and a pretty good cast at that - Ed Norton, William Hurt, and Tim Roth (enough talent there to even cover for the suckfest that is Liv Tyler). From the looks of the trailer Norton may have gotten his way.



Next up, Righteous Kill. The only really significant thing about this movie is it stars Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, together for the first time since their pseudo scene together in Heat. There has always been talk that these two never did anything together because they hate each other. Well it appears they don't hate each other as much as they love fat paychecks. Whatever. The movie looks like a piece of crap and neither of these two have done anything worth talking about in close to a decade. I'm sure it will make a billion dollars. On the bright side Curtis Jackson is in the movie so we are guaranteed that someone is gonna get rich or die tryin.



The first full length trailer for Pixar's Wall-E was finally released. I had seen various teasers for this Andrew Stanton film and had no fucking clue what this movie was all about. Now that I have seen the full trailer, I still have no fucking clue. But what I do know is that the animation looks astoundingly gorgeous. Pixar may as well clear off space on their mantle now for the Best Animated Feature Oscar.



Last and probably least I have three words for you - Lost Boys Sequel.

Worst. Cover. Ever.

People always ask me "Jonah, why do you hate American Idol?"
As if it isn't obvious I usually answer them with something along the lines of :
"Because American Idol is actually bad for America and I'm a patriot" or "Because I don't enjoy brain damage"

But just in case you need further proof, this fucking travesty apparently happened last night.



Cripes! After hearing that my ears needed to have an abortion.

If you listen closely you can actually hear John Lennon and George Harrison turning over in their graves.

"Who Do You Think You Are?"

NBC has plans for a reality show called "Who Do You Think You Are?". The show investigate various celebrities genealogies and learn about "interesting" things that have happened their families past. The exploitative goal being that some lurid secret from a famous person's family history gets discovered and exposed on network TV as their family tree is laid out in front of a national audience.

Wow, an interesting sounding reality TV show, that is on a network, and is not just another derivative of the contest based shows (American Idol), drunken idiot shows (Real World) or the shows that exploit white trash (Wife Swap)...Who woulda thunk it?...Well actually the British. Like many of today's popular reality TV programming (Idol, Wife Swap, Celebrity Fit Club, Dancing with the Stars, etc.) "Who Do You Think You Are" is a remake of a BBC show.

The plan is the have ex-Friends star and douche-chill inducer Lisa Kudrow host. All this means is that I will not watch the show unless I am promised that an outraged celeb will split Kudrow's head open with a machete like a coconut.

That's not true, I will watch because I am really looking forward to the episode where Britney Spears' family tree is revealed and it only has one branch. (wocka wocka wocka).

Seven Redux

You guys ready for some Blasphemy?!?! I thought so!

The Catholic Church announced seven brand spankin new deadly sins; sins that they claim are updated for the growing globalised world we live in.

Among the newly anointed sins announced by the Catholic Church (one of the wealthiest organizations in the history of mankind), from the Vatican (one of the most decadent locations in the world, the definition of excess) was a ban on financial gluttony. Luckily irony is still OK.

The Church has also put litter bug's mortal souls in peril by making pollution a sin along with releasing it's new slogan:

Give A Hoot, Don't Pollute...OR YOU WILL BURN IN HELL!!!!


It's funny because I never really got the feeling that The Pope Mobile was built onto a Prius. In fact I'm pretty sure the Pope has deemed anything less than a Mercedes S-Class (MSRP $87,000) as unholy.

No word yet if The House oversight committee plans on calling The Pope before congress to find out why HGH was not listed among The Church's new deadly sin list and to insist on the Church instating a stronger performance enhancing drug testing policy for all clergymen. One senator called the Church's current policy "toothless".

Do You Believe In Miracles? Yes!

Friday Night Lights, the best show on television that nobody is watching, got a last second reprieve from NBC. It had been reported that the head honchos over at the Peacock were looking to partner up with somebody on the show to help defer costs in order to renew the critically acclaimed yet low rated show. It appears that partner has shown up in the form of DirecTV and it's new owner Liberty Media.

Even though FNL is considered by many critics to be one of the best shows on television it has not been able to shake the stigma of low ratings (averaged 6.2 Million views for season 2, 101st). To be fair though, the show does do fairly well with the all important 18-34 demo (the section of the audience with the greatest buying power = more advertisers), often winning the time slot. Also, NBC decided to bury it on Friday nights...what did they expect?

The deal with DirecTV will give FNL greater exposure over various exhibition windows and platforms, hopefully increasing its overall presence.

This is great news, especially at a time when some shows are still in jeopardy after the writers strike, more and more reality TV crap is being pushed on us every day, and the best show on TV, The Wire, is set to air its series finale this Sunday.

Clear Eyes, Full Hearts Can't Lose!

Nobody Puts Patrick's Pancreas In A Corner!

Rumors shot around the interwebs this morning, based on a report from The National Enquirer, that Patrick Swayze had pancreatic cancer and had five weeks to live. Considering the source, I didn't want to write anything about this until it was confirmed by a more reputable source (in a manner of speaking). Unfortunately it was...

Swayze's rep released the following statement to TMZ (by the way, how sad is it that TMZ is now considered the reputable news source?):

"Patrick Swayze has been diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer and is currently undergoing treatment. Patrick's physician Dr. George Fisher states, 'Patrick has a very limited amount of disease and he appears to be responding well to treatment thus far. All of the reports stating the timeframe of his prognosis and his physical side effects are absolutely untrue. We are considerably more optimistic.' Patrick is continuing his normal schedule during this time, which includes working on upcoming projects. The outpouring of support and concern he has already received from the public is deeply appreciated by Patrick and his family."

Well at least they deny that the world only gets five more weeks of The Swayz. Either way it's a real bummer. Let's hope he can pull through.

It has not been a good month so far for the stars of Road House, one of my all-time favorite movies. Yesterday it was announced that Jeff Healey, the Double Deuce's guitar player, passed away after a battle with cancer. Healey had lost his eyesight as a child due to cancer.

We know nothing in the world can kill Sam Elliot...Kelly Lynch you better watch your back!

Trailer Watch: "The Most Anticipated Movie Of The Year"

Trailer Watch is early this week because this one couldn't wait, it is the "most anticipated movie of the year" after all. Here it is, the one you have been waiting for, the first trailer for the Anna Nicole Smith movie starring Willa Ford!



Apparently "most anticipated" now means "biggest smelliest steamiest piece of shit". When did this happen? I didn't get the memo.

The best way I can think to describe this movie is: if Showgirls and Gigli fucked, Anna Nicole would be the retarded inbred movie offspring.

They may as well start engraving the Razzie now because Anna Nicole is a shoo-in. Can you bet on this in Vegas? Hell, this movie even makes I Know Who Killed Me (winner of the 2007 Razzie for Worst Picture) look like a Hitchcock film.

They probably would have been better off digging up her body, tying strings to her limbs, and prancing her around the set like a marionette. At least that way we could have laughed every time a body part flew off and hit one of her (obviously desperate for work) co-stars.

The Bank Job Poster Steals the Show

The Bank Job starring Jason Statham is another in a long line of heist gone wrong movies (it even uses heist gone wrong in it's tagline). While it is doubtful that The Bank Job will distinguish itself from other heist movies in recent history it does stand out in one respect, its poster.


The poster is a simple, gritty, beautiful throwback to the 70's. We see Statham clad in a leather jacket doing his best James Dean, behind the wheel of a car (he is a car dealer in the movie) looking out the driver side window with a reflection of another classic car visible in his window. But it's not so much the content of the image that is important, but how it is presented. With the use of washed out neutral colors, the poster's artist makes you subconsciously think "old", not old like Peter O'Toole, but in a nostalgic kind of way. To cement this effect, the artist used a "film grain" filter to give it that gritty old school feel.

As I stated above, I seriously doubt The Bank Job will do anything to revolutionize the heist movie genre. It will probably fall somewhere in the middle of the pack and will probably just remind you of Statham's strong turns in previous heist movies like Snatch and The Italian Job. Of course I wouldn't be surprised if The Bank Job manages "to steal the #1 spot in the box office" this coming weekend (you see what I did there, I stole the inevitable corny ass headlines from next Monday's entertainment columns).

If seeing the trailer for The Bank Job has gotten you in the mood for a great heist movie allow me to make a few suggestions:

Reservoir Dogs - The quintessential heist gone wrong movie. Tarantino at his best.

Ocean's Eleven (2001) - The best of the three "new" Ocean's movies, and better than the original, Ocean's Eleven is just flat out fun. It's slick, cool, funny, and the plot has so many great twists it will keep you guessing. George Clooney & Brad Pitt head up a star studded cast.

Dog Day Afternoon - Al Pacino and John Cazale play criminal masterminds who plan to use the proceeds from a heist for a sex change operation. The heist goes wrong and the pair as besieged by the cops and the media. The movie is based on a true story because you can't make that kind of shit up.

Bonnie and Clyde - A pair of young criminals, played by Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, go on a murderous bank robbing spree across the south. The film, which was released at a time when America's youth was becoming increasingly disenchanted with the government & the Vietnam War, immediately connected with the growing counterculture eager to rebel against the government. Bonnie and Clyde was criticized at the time for its violence and romanticizing of the criminal duo and was met with resistance from the censors. The ending of the movie however dispelled any notion of romancing the criminal lifestyle (I won't give away the ending, but trust me it's a classic). Bonnie and Clyde paved the way for films like Thelma and Louise, True Romance, and Natural Born Killers.

Heat - The mack daddy of all heist movies. Michael Mann's epic story of an armed robber (DeNiro) and the cop chasing him (Pacino). Underneath the action packed heist movie is a commentary on man's insecurity (DeNiro's speech about being able to walk away from anything in 30 seconds says it all) and obsession. The film's climatic heist gone wrong is a bullet filled action packed scene that can't be missed. Great supporting performances are turned in from Val Kilmer, Tom Seizmore, John Voight, and a 14 year old Natalie Portman. An all time great!